Friday, March 01, 2013

The Nationals frequently scrawled Jayson Werth’s name first on their lineup card last year. The Orioles turned to Nick Markakis with plenty of success. The Yankees relied on Derek Jeter, while the Tigers gave the job to Austin Jackson. All of those teams made the playoffs. All of their leadoff men profiled as solid contact hitters with good—but not great—basestealing ability.

It is a model the Mets hope to copy this year, more out of necessity than anything else. The team leader in stolen bases last season was No. 3 hitter David Wright, who swiped 15. There’s a decent chance no Mets player will steal that many in 2013. So the Mets are no longer concerned with speed from their leadoff men, looking for Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Ruben Tejada, Mike Baxter and/or Collin Cowgill to claim the job.

Those folks all seem to agree with the more modern definition of a leadoff man.

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That taught me something about Austin Jackson. I had imprinted the 2011 version (184K, .317 OBP) and was surprised by his mention, not recognizing the .377 OBP 2012 AJ (with a less outrageous 134K, hence the over 50 points of BA added)

The part that surprised me about Jackson was not being a base stealer. He's gone from 27-22-12 in his 3 years. Looks like he's still speedy though. My guess is the 2012 total will prove to be the aberration.

The part that surprised me about Jackson was not being a base stealer. He's gone from 27-22-12 in his 3 years. Looks like he's still speedy though. My guess is the 2012 total will prove to be the aberration.

Leyland has already said he wants to see him steal more so you're probably right but why would anybody want to risk a stolen base (with any frequency) in front of Cabrera and Fielder?

Jackson's K-rate did come down substantially (and walk rate up) which is great to see but he still doesn't "profile as a solid contact hitter" with a 22% K/PA rate. Regardless it was an excellent year for Jackson, improved in pretty much every way, and it will be interesting to see if he repeats it.

Being as the Mets apparently think having a leadoff hitter focus on, you know, getting on base -is some radical new idea, it's clear that they're about 25-30 years behind the times. Therefore, I think I want to be wherever the Mets are when the world comes to an end - it should buy me several more years before doomsday comes.

Being as the Mets apparently think having a leadoff hitter focus on, you know, getting on base -is some radical new idea, it's clear that they're about 25-30 years behind the times.

Back in 1984 one of the first things Davey Johson did was promote Wally Backman to bat leadoff and demoted Mookie Wilson from leadoff to batting 6th... and the MSM howled and frothed at their collective mouths...
Eventually Oquendo went bust as a #2 hitter, Mookie got moved up to #2- and to lead off when Backman's platoon partner (Chapman) was playing, Backman stayed leadoff when starting...

but that was then, Johnson was canned in 1990, Vince Coleman was brought in as a FA... and years later Omar Minaya once responded to a question regarding OBP by saying, "that's not something we look at"

While I yield to no one in my loathing for Minaya's reign, as of 2006 he wasn't clueless regarding OBP, as the quote makes clear. Still and all, that doesn't explain his acquisitions in his last season, which seemed oblivious to the value of getting on base.

"I'm not going to lie to you: Ideally, we'd love to see him improve his on-base percentage," said Mets GM Omar Minaya about Reyes. "In a perfect world, yes, you want your leadoff guy to have a high on-base percentage. But with Reyes you can't just look at on-base percentage. Look at his total bases. This guy hits doubles and triples. That's what I look at when I look at Jose Reyes.

"And can you imagine if he improves his on-base percentage on top of what he is already? My goodness, you're talking about a great, great player."

Omar’s in a difficult situation, and this is what people will point to when they excuse his faults: “What else is he going to do, given that his team is owned by MLB?”

And I agree, a little, in that I’ll give him some sympathy. Beyond that, his record in Montreal and his general outlook offer little evidence that Minaya would be a good general manager in Seattle.

One thing we agree on here at the U.S.S. Mariner is that when you look for a GM candidate, you should look for someone adaptable, willing to learn. Minaya will not learn, and seems to have a great deal of disdain for those who do. One of my favorite Minaya quotes is “I don’t talk about on-base percentage. I’m old school. I’m not a stat guy. I’m a talent evaluator. The guys who taught me the game of baseball never talked about on-base percentage. Give me talent and I’ll give you on-base percentage.”He’s got a ton of gems like that. Two years as Montreal’s GM, the team went 83-79 twice. The problem is that Minaya knew he wasn’t going to be around for a while and essentially has left the Expos minor league system in a state that (were it in the US, anyway) might qualify it as a Superfund cleanup project.

http://www.ussmariner.com/2003/10/06/omar-minaya-the-strip-miner/

A little weirdness in 2007, as reported by Salfino and linked to on BTF:

"The major focus of the Minaya interview was the rumored switch of David Wright to the second spot of the lineup. At one point, Minaya even sought advice from Keith Hernandez on the move (Hernandez seemed somewhat conflicted, though generally supportive). Note that Willie Randolph has batted Wright second almost exclusively of late.

“Our stat guys like Wright batting second because of his historical OBP (on-base percentage),” said Minaya. “He’ll get 50 or 60 more at bats and that’s going to get us more runs when Reyes is on. And he’s easier to get home when he’s on base because he runs well. But what I think about is what happens if Reyes makes an out? Then you have a 100-RBI guy not able to drive someone in. It’s Willie’s decision. I can see how it makes sense statistically. Willie hasn’t told me what he’ll do if Alou isn’t playing that day. Where do you bat LoDuca then?”